Wanderfly: A Recommendation Engine For Travel Destinations

November 16, 2010

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Wanderfly is the perfect cure for wanderlust, an answer to the integral human desire for adventure and exploration. Whether it’s just daydreaming about the next vacation, or picking one that will grow you culturally, Wanderfly provides a platform to explore new places and fun activities. In a travel industry that is becoming more and more focused on individual needs, Wanderfly gets at the core reasons for why people travel and uses them to create a personalized travel experience for each user.

If you’re looking for adventure, culture, romance, or any number of other categories, Wanderfly will help you find the perfect location, at the perfect time, all within your budget. The website bills itself as the “Pandora for travel,” meaning that exploration and options you may not have considered are presented for your perusal based on your preferences. A sophisticated recommendation engine is hidden behind a simple UI that is easy and fun to navigate. Wanderfly features 1,200 global destinations, rated by travel sites such as Expedia and Lonely Planet. Since most hotels and activities are based on user recommendations, Wanderfly makes it easy to check out what others have said without leaving the page. Don’t like the first option presented? Click the next button to see a (seemingly) infinite array of possibilities. Each option includes an explanation of the location and a list of suggested activities. Don’t worry though, a big criteria in determining options is the budget you set when entering in your other information at the beginning of the search. In addition to locations, users are given options for hotels and flights—also with the budget in mind. Users can book trips they like directly onsite via their integration with Expedia.

Vacation recommendation results from Wanderfly

Based in New York, Wanderfly was founded by Cezary Pietrzak, Evan Schneyes, and Christy Liu. Their combined skills cover the most important aspects of running a startup such as technology, marketing and design. Using their site, it becomes clear to the user that their philosophy is to create customer centric web experiences, as it is both intuitive and interesting to use.

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Stella Fayman is a member of the founding team at FeeFighters, the comparison shopping website for credit card processors. She specializes in marketing and social media, and providing customer service to business owners. Stella is passionate about all things entrepreneurship and startup life. Follow her at @startupstella.